What ‘Separation of Church and State’ ACTUALLY Means
Brad Stine and Constitution Expert, Rick Green, discuss why the actual meaning of ‘Separation of Church and State’ is misinterpreted by the Left.
BRAD STINE: Hey! It’s God’s Comic, Brad Stine. I know what you’ve been doing. You’ve been waiting for that second episode of me and Rick Green talking about the Establishment Clause. Well, I’m glad you were waiting. I’m glad you’re still here. And for those of you who sued me over the fact that I had the audacity to talk about my religious liberties – no apologies!
I have been praying for all of you in sackcloth and ashes because there’s so much you don’t know about the First Amendment. Thank God he invented me! Well… me and my buddy Rick Green. Rick how are you brother, how is Dripping Springs?
RICK GREEN: I didn’t bring my sackcloth, nor nor do I have ash to put on my head. My hair kind of looks like ash, though.
BRAD: Alright, we’re going to get right back to the First Amendment and what I consider the practicality of what the Founders were all about. So, they gave us the First Amendment, which to me means they must have thought it was primary. It was most important. It would establish what the rest of the Amendments would have valued, based on our freedoms. So, we started with the First Amendment, which also has a first line, which gave us religious liberties. So, clearly that was singularly the most important right the Founders thought we have. Now, we’ve got a lot of people that don’t care about the Founders. They feel like they’re outdated. They need to be removed. I’m an originalist, so I want to get back to where we were because there are some people that never left our episode and they’ve been sitting here for 26 hours and they’re dehydrated. But, we talked about the Establishment Clause and the fact that the courts have created this alleged discrepancy that we’re not allowed to use religion in public spheres – especially if taxpayer dollars are involved. We know that’s not what the original intent of the Founders were. But, what I am curious about is: Once a court has established something and it becomes precedent, and then the courts from then on seem to use what they call case law instead of going back to the original, we’re kind of stuck in a loop here where even though they’ve made a mistake, we’re now basing it on the links of this mistake. So, is there a way – and you’re a lawyer, and you were a Texas State Representative, and you’re smart guy – Is there a way after numerous laws have been put into place and rulings have been made about this is clearly not Constitutional because of “Separation of Church and State” to go back and say, “You know what… we made a mistake 25 years ago. We’re gonna have to erase all this and start over.” Can that actually be done, practically?
RICK: Not only can it be done, I believe we’re headed that direction. In fact, even Justice Clarence Thomas on the US Supreme Court has been stating over and over again in the last couple of years how much he doesn’t like what we call in the legal world stare decisis – where we actually rely so much on what some judge said last year, who said that because some judge said that 10 years ago, who said it 50 years ago, who said it 100 years ago… And we quote judge after judge after judge, instead of going to the original document. You said you’re an originalist. That’s what we should be doing – going to what the Constitution actually says. If people today don’t like how the Constitution is written, they can amend it. We’ve done it 27 times. But, we stick with the original until the people amend it – not some judge amends it. That’s the real problem here – we’ve let the judges change the meaning of the Constitution and they’re literally amending the Constitution without our permission. So, it can be done. I think there are a lot more justices today that are for that then even 20-30 years ago. And so, it needs to happen. We need to stop relying on those previous judicial decisions as much as we actually go back and rely on the original intent of the Constitution. And do exactly what you just said, Brad, which is to say, “Oh, wait! We got that wrong. We didn’t look close enough at what the Founders said. We have misapplied this idea of not establishing a religion; and we’ve actually ignored the second half of that first part of the First Amendment, which is not prohibiting the free exercise thereof. We stopped people from living their faith all the time now. We stopped them from living their faith in the public square. And now we started to do it even in the private square – supposedly using the First Amendment. We’re preventing people from living out their faith, which is the whole reason we had the Constitution in the first place – to protect your rights and protect your people.
BRAD: Well, now using a previous judgement is is helpful to a certain degree. I mean, I want to be fair. There’s gonna be people watching that hate me because they’re progressives, and that’s okay. And they will say, “Wait a minute. You didn’t have a problem going to a judge’s ruling when he said that we were a Christian nation. You didn’t have a problem referring to them when they said we need to be religious and we need to allow religion to be part of our fabric. So suddenly – now that a guy said something else – now you have a problem with case law?”
So, how do we balance between having the state consistent with certain rulings so we’re not all over the place? And, when does it be get off track, and literally like you said, circumvents the actual Constitution by one judge that had decided just to make it up as he chooses.
RICK: You’re right. I mean, there’s a balance where you let those previous decisions help guide you – help you to understand what the original meaning was. But this really goes back to the heart of it. It is an opinion of the court. It was never intended to be the law of the land. We’ve got the wrong branch of government making law. When we spend all this time determining what freedom of religion is, what the law about our freedom of religion in the United States is right now, based on a Judicial Court opinion instead of based on what the Constitution and the statutes of the Congress say… because the Congress is supposed to make the law, not the courts. So, the real problem we’re dealing with here is the wrong branch making law. Now within that problem is what you’re addressing: How do we change that problem? How do we fix that problem? And yes, we can fix it with better judges. And that’s why it’s important to vote. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to who’s on the Supreme Court. It’s why the most important thing to pay attention to in a Presidential Election is their judicial philosophy. Because the longest impact they’re gonna have is who they appoint on the bench. So those are all very important things. But it’s also important to simply learn the Constitution and get us back to the proper separation of powers. And the proper separation of powers – according to the founders and accorded Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers – is that the court would never make law. We shouldn’t have fear our liberty being lost from the court, because it can’t make law. It can’t enforce law. It’s the President and the Congress that do those two things. So, it’s a it’s a long-term game here.
And I want to say one other thing, Brad. You said, “How do we fix this? How do we correct this?” One of the most important things we can do is this: Everybody listening right now, don’t be cowered in your faith. Don’t hide your faith because of these judicial opinions out there. You go live out your faith in private and in the public square. We’ve got the legal organizations all over the country – Christian legal organizations that will step in to defend your exercise of your religion. So, don’t be prohibited from your free exercise of your faith. Make sure you’re living out your First Amendment rights, and we’ll bring in the legal teams to defend you.
BRAD: And so, when we talk about being originalist, I don’t want to be accused of being partisan or whatnot – or to do what they’re doing, which is choose the idea I like and try to enforce that. But, what do we do? We go to original documents to discover what the Founders actually meant? Are there precedents that are clearly established – this is what they meant by this information – so that we’re not just making it up or trying to enforce our point of view?
RICK: No, that’s a great point. And that’s why they gave us the Federalist Papers. It’s like the instruction manual for the Constitution. So the guys that actually gave us the Constitution wrote a bunch of letters to the editor to sell the American people on why the Constitution should be ratified. And they go through line by line, clause by clause, so it’s a great instruction manual. Now granted, it’s hard to read. I will say that. It’s tough slogging. And, I remember when I was complaining about how hard they were to read one day, David Barton said, “Hey Rick, you know that was written for the average upstate New York farmer. So, you know, you should be understanding this.” But, obviously we’re not as smart as we were back then. We don’t have as good of an education system. That’s why we have Constitution coaches like myself. That’s why you and I go out and do “Comedy & Constitution”. We bring it to life and we make it easy to understand; and make it applicable to today. What are the things you’re doing right now today and how does this impact your family, your backyard, your community? We love bringing that stuff to life. So, people ought to bring “Comedy & Constitution” to their community. And Brad, you and I will go out there and explain it to them.
BRAD: And, they can send their kids to your Patriot Academy because that’s a great way to teach the next generation all about Conservative values, Christian values. But frankly, the Founding Fathers and their original intent and our Christian values – whether you’re secular, atheists… I don’t really care- that’s the beauty of America – you can believe or not believe whatever you want. But it’s only because of the Christian values that was created in this country that gives you the freedom to not believe in Christian values. I love that. True theocracies don’t allow you that.
Well listen, I’d like to go further, but we got other things to cover. We’re running out of time for this episode. Once again, you were enlightening. You’re a genius.
And, for those of you watching who didn’t know, and you now realize the power has always been to you – because you are the government – don’t lose heart. We can win. We can go back. We can fight. There can be a new revolution of reclaiming your freedoms, and your First Amendment rights, and your religious liberties.
PC free is Liberty! That’s why I’m starting that movement.
And if you’re an atheist or non-believer out there, and you don’t like what I’m saying, at least be thankful to God that we have a free country where we can disagree. I know you don’t pray to God, but I thought it’d be a funny little dig. That’s what Liberty feels like!
This is God’s Comic, Brad Stein on Brad Stein Has Issues with my buddy the Constitutional Coach, Rick Green! We’ve got more to talk about. But it’s gonna be in another episode.
So, if any of this has offended you, I don’t care! Welcome to the new America. We’re fighting back. Put a helmet on!
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